I wanted to be the mom who made her kid a costume for Halloween, and Sean and I wanted to dress up with her. We’ve been thinking of cute ideas that would allow all three of us to dress up thematically. As so often happens, there just wasn’t time, and we wound up buying costumes instead. Yeah, that’s plural. We couldn’t make up our minds so Maya wound up with two.

Maya the Tiger – 11 1/2 months old

Maya growls. She has this little stuffed tiger that Aunt Kay made her, and we taught her that the tiger growls. Now every time she picks up her stuffed tiger, she growls. And when we ask her to growl (and she feels like it), she does it. So definitely she had to be a tiger.

Maya the Monkey

Maya’s also silly. We’ve called her Maya Monkey forever. So definitely she had to be a monkey.

The costumes are hot and the hats that came with them slip over her eyes, so Maya’s not too keen on wearing them. 11-month-olds, it turns out, do not value aesthetics over comfort. Tonight we’ll probably try to dress her up to hand out candy at the house, but I’m guessing it won’t last too long. Oh well, at least we have cute pictures.

Two weekends ago, we finally had a bit of a cold front blow through town. With morning temperatures in the 50s, you could almost believe it really was October. With the promise of temperatures topping out in the low 80s and the sun shining, we decided to spend some time outdoors. We took Maya to Bastrop to a pumpkin patch.

Maya in the pumpkin patch – 10 1/2 months old

We left Austin bound for Barton Hill Farms mid-morning, figuring Maya would nap during the 45 minute car ride. Not so. She kept up a steady stream of playing and jabbering, not even looking sleepy till the last five minutes of our drive. Sean looked at me and said, “I bet we have fifteen minutes.” I knew it was probably true.

We were wrong. The moment we got out of the car, Maya looked around and giggled. I don’t know if it was the sunny but not blistering weather, the kids running around, or what, but she was happy. Better still, she was pleasant and active for the next two hours.

The whole family!

There were lots of hay bales stacked up here and there with old farm machinery and lots of pumpkins. I’m not sure why, but Maya really seemed enamored with those pumpkins. And of course, hay is fun to eat.

They had some goats penned up for the kids to feed and pet. Those goats may have been among Maya’s favorite things ever. They nuzzled at her hand searching for food and she petted their heads and played with their tiny horns.

Maya loved the goats

The Barton Hill Farms folks had made a very large Willie Nelson themed corn maze, and we walked in it a little while. For the first time all day, I actually started to feel hot, and Maya was kind of bored, so we didn’t spend a great deal of time in there.

We ended our outing with lunch at a picnic table under a big shade tree. Maya drank her bottle then helped eat Mom and Dad’s hamburgers and fries. We had barely made it out of the parking lot before she was asleep.

Summer is finally (FINALLY) over here, but earlier in the month it was still distinctly present. We took advantage of the warm weather to wedge in a few last little outdoor photography projects.

Maya Pudding Painting – 10 1/2 months old

Project 1: Let Maya paint with pudding. All in all, this worked out well, however, there were two tiny issues. First, the moment she realized it was pudding, she wanted to eat it, not paint with it. Second, chocolate pudding looks like crap, in the most literal sense. Still it was hilarious to watch her mess around with it. As long as you remember that it’s chocolate pudding, it’s pretty cute.

Maya in her Summer Dress – 10 1/2 months old

Project 2: Photo Maya in her little summer dress. We had picked up this very thin, pretty little dress on a whim a while back. It can really only be worn when it’s warm and next spring she’ll certainly be too big. We hustled her into it and let her play with the trees in the yard. Very pretty.